


A Harsh and Phlegmatic Creature

by magistrate



Category: Red Dead Redemption 2
Genre: Arguments, Gen, Hunting, RDR2 Chapter 3, mucophobia content warning, quietly cracky Don't Starve fusion elements, sibling feuds, world's worst Get Along shirt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:35:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26310484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magistrate/pseuds/magistrate
Summary: Hosea asks Arthur to take John hunting.  It's a bonding experience, but not the one either of them wanted.
Relationships: Arthur Morgan & John Marston, John Marston & Jack Marston, implied John Morgan & Abigail Roberts
Comments: 6
Kudos: 37





	A Harsh and Phlegmatic Creature

The heat made everyone miserable.

Or, part of it was the heat. But maybe it was more the mosquitos that swarmed up from the puddles left at the shores of the lake, or muggy air that lay over camp like a blanket. Maybe it was the ants that got into the coffee, or the godawful row Pearson had set up when he caught Ms. Grimshaw sneaking herbs into the stewpot.

Maybe it was all the herbs everyone _else_ started sneaking into the stewpot, so that by the third day the mint and rosemary and wild garlic had turned the stew from bland to inedible, and everyone was fishing limp green streaks out of their bowls and cursing.

Or maybe it was that young Jack had gone and got himself _well_ and truly sprayed by a skunk, which put Abigail over the shotgun-trigger of her own anger, which of course spilled onto John, which set off some restlessness like wildfire. All Arthur knew was that he came back from guarding the road and waded into the middle of _something_ , half the camp shouting amongst themselves, and Hosea cast him a _look_ that had him playing peacemaker with the ones who'd make peace and hollering down them that wouldn't, because he could holler louder than most of them. And he could hit harder, when that didn't suffice.

By the time it was settled, Hosea had that look on his face that said that he might be old, but he could make someone pay if he had to, and besides that it was lucky for _someone_ that Dutch wasn't there.

Maybe not lucky for Arthur.

He didn't have the wit or the reflex to escape before Hosea caught him with a glance and said, "Walk with me, why don't you?", and they wound up on the narrow strip of pebbled shore not far from the camp, looking across Flatiron Lake, to where the lake birds were trying their luck on the fish. Arthur sighed, hooked his thumbs into his belt, and asked the question he knew he shouldn't ask:

"So. What started that?"

"A bit like asking which rock started the landslide, isn't it?" Hosea asked, and then put the lie to that immediately by saying, "Though in this case, it was Abigail."

" _Abigail?_ " Arthur asked. No doubt, the woman could be a force. But she usually kept the peace; she didn't break it. Unless... "You mean John."

Hosea gave a little flip of his palm, as though to say, _no difference._ "Seems little Jack got it into his head to follow him. Wandered off into the woods while John wasn't watching. Abigail thought he ought to have kept an eye on the boy."

A familiar anger was working its way up Arthur's spine. "What, like every other person in the gang does." Well, every one of them save Micah, he thought. Hell, even _Bill_ knew better than to let Jack go wandering off alone.

Hosea made a neutral noise. "John said his attention was on other things."

"Oh, _John_ said." The things John put his attention on half the time weren't worth the time of day. "He's lucky it was only a skunk that got him."

"I've told Jack not to bother him," Hosea started.

"Oh, you think it's Jack that's the problem," Arthur snapped. "If Marston would take a _lick_ of responsibility for that boy—"

"I know." Hosea rested his hands on the butts of his pistols, and stared off across the lazy water. "And — you know how I feel about it, Arthur; of course you do. But Jack listens to his mother, and Abigail's making it worse on both of them, expecting from John as much as she does."

In Arthur's accounting, she ought to be able to expect a sight more. "She's got every right—"

"She does, and it ain't about right," Hosea said. Agreeing and disagreeing all at once. Arthur had a feeling that he was going to turn the conversation around in some twist that ordinary mortals couldn't follow. Arguing with Hosea, in some ways, was always worse than arguing with Dutch; Dutch would just yell and berate and ask where your faith had gone, if you'd got any loyalty left. Given half a chance, Hosea would _con_ you. "It's about what's possible. John is... still learning."

"You say that like he's learning," Arthur said.

"He might be a slow study, but he always did get there in the end," Hosea said, as though this were something like reading or riding or shooting. Arthur had his doubts.

"Probably just run off again," he muttered.

Hosea cast him a look. And Arthur was ready to be told, _leave it,_ like he was some camp dog who had a rabbit in his jaws, but instead Hosea said, "Hey," as though he'd had an idea. "Why don't you... take him out, for a while?"

There it was. "Why? You got a job for us?"

"I think it would be good for the two of you to spend some time together."

"I don't."

"Yeah," Hosea said, as though Arthur had agreed. "Take him out fishing, or hunting, or something. You seem to have come across a real talent for it. Jack said he loved fishing with you."

Hadn't ended well, that. "John ain't—"

"You taught the son, why not teach the father?" Hosea asked. "Go on, get out of camp for a while. Let things cool off." He only gave Arthur a moment to find a response, which Arthur didn't. "Go on, then!"

Arguing with Hosea was a bad bargain. But Arthur still didn't fully understand how he'd ended up agreeing, even when he went to fetch John off the log he was sulking on.

He stalked up behind the man, and snapped, "John. We're going hunting. Get your things."

John jumped, and looked — if anything — as unhappy with the idea as Arthur was. "What?"

"Hosea says so," Arthur grumbled. If John wanted to try arguing with Hosea, best of luck to him. Of course, Hosea had gone off his own way and was chatting with Tilly, and Arthur was the one here to argue with. So, best to get Marston chivvied out of the camp before he could put up much of a fight.

Arthur turned and scanned the horizon. There were deer in the near forest, of course, and he'd seen a few boar down south of Rhodes...

And then the glint of sunlight on the waters of Flat Iron caught him, and a thought pricked the edges of his mind.

"Let's you and me head out to one of the islands," he said. "Why not. We bought that boat."

John straightened up, and gave Arthur a look like he was guessing his body would come floating back to Clemens Point. "You're not serious."

"Sure I am," Arthur said. "There's odd stuff lives out on those islands. And folk are getting tired of pork and turkey and venison."

" _I'm_ not," John protested.

"Well, I don't recall anyone asking you," Arthur said. "Come on."

* * *

John spent the trip over the lake sitting, sullen, in the exact center of the boat, wrists resting on his knees, his shoulders hunched forward as though if he got so much as splashed by the water it'd claim him. Or maybe just to force Arthur to do all the rowing, because it had been his idea to go out on the water in the first place.

Well. It wasn't going to get him out of this little ill-advised adventure, and if a few downstrokes of the oar hit the water harder than they needed to, if they happened to kick a little spray over the side of the boat, that was just the price John had to pay.

"What do you expect we'll find on these islands?" John asked, as the last few oarstrokes drove the boat ashore. "Ducks? Gulls?"

"Probably," Arthur said, as he climbed out of the boat. John scrambled onto dry land like he hadn't been sure he'd see it. "Saw some pretty big turtles out here." He eyed John, then put on his best guileless tone. "And there was talk in town about some folk seeing something odd out on these."

John eyed him, already suspicious but just credulous enough to bite. "Really?"

"Big old beast," Arthur said. He pulled the boat up far enough to beach it, and jerked his head toward the little stand of trees that covered the middle of the island. "Said it looked a little like an elephant. But furry. Hump like a camel, and four little horns on the top of its head. Big pointy ears the size of bedsheets."

John had been looking at him more askance with every word spoken. "And that sounds like a real animal, does it?"

Maybe he should have told John that they were coming here to hunt mules. The man looked appropriately mulish, his jaw set like that.

"Listen," he said, "we already know we're not catching a damn thing with you blundering about, so why not take a snipe hunt? Hosea only wanted you out of camp for a while."

"Could have gone to a goddamn saloon."

"What, and made yourself a bother to all the women?" Arthur scoffed. "Abigail wants your hide, as it is—"

"Leave off." John stalked back to the edge of the water, and looked at the boat like he was wondering if he'd rather risk death than be out here. "Ain't like we're _married_ —"

Arthur walked up behind him and hit him upside the head.

Then John turned, and went for his eyes; and Arthur ducked, and went for his throat, and in a minute they were both on the bank, thoroughly muddied, and the flurry of argument had resolved into a kind of a draw. Probably they could have fought it out. Dutch and Hosea and Ms. Grimshaw were all back in Clemens Point, with a good stretch of lake separating them. But they'd both learned to fight hard, and fight fast, and have it over and done with before anyone came by to yell them into stopping.

John seemed to take it as a loss, or at least it irritated him as much as one. He stood up, walked a few feet inland, and kicked a piece of driftwood. "So, you have a plan for this farcical trip of yours, or are we just going to stand on the beach all day and go tell Hosea we didn't catch anything?"

Arthur snorted. John was definitely trying to make it seem that he'd come out on top; he was breaking out his silver-dollar words. "Let's you and me take a little walk inland," Arthur said. "Who knows, you might find a sleeping duck to shoot, or something."

* * *

Still, John was the one to find the track first, if only because Arthur wasn't actually looking.

The island didn't have all that much, even in the forested patch. Wild carrots and berry bushes; a few twiggy shrubs and stands of tall golden grass; birds, and Arthur saw a couple rabbits which looked deeply stupid and deeply lost. He didn't bother to pot them. However they'd got out here — it was well and again too far for a rabbit to swim — they'd probably been here long enough to have inbred themselves to disaster; they had odd long curling whiskers sprouting up from above their eyebrows, and tended to squeal and run not very far away when they saw him.

He spent a few minutes studying one from a distance, fixing the image in his mind to go draw later when Marston wasn't an albatross around his neck.

Thinking to check just where the albatross was, he looked around. And saw John staring at something by his feet, looking intent and irritated.

"Hey, Arthur," he called, voice dry. "What kind of tracks do elephants make?"

Arthur let out a breath, and wandered over. "Marston, you think I've ever actually hunted an elephant?"

"You're the one who walked into camp with a lion's paw."

Yeah; a lion's paw and a fake emerald the size of his palm. Hosea had enjoyed that. Managed to get more for the emerald than Arthur had honestly expected, but still not enough to make Arthur feel that the entire exercise hadn't been a waste of his time.

John had found a little pile of dust, gathered in some indentation. He scuffed it with his boot and the dust pile blew away, revealing a print, clear as day: a round pad, and three little round divots for toes.

One single print. Like a foot had descended from the heavens, pressed into the ground, and vanished without taking another stride. Leaving the print to be piled with dust. Maybe it wasn't even a print; maybe it was some kind of odd bird's dust-wallow, or a place where some rodent had torn up a big mushroom and eaten it, or something.

But Marston scowled down at it, then looked off in the direction the little toeprints faced, and said, "Seems like it's pointing off that way."

He started off.

"Waste of time," Arthur called after him. But John shook his head and kept walking, and Arthur followed because he had nothing better to do.

* * *

John found a couple more prints, each one sitting forlorn and alone but pointing off in the direction of another. Arthur still wasn't convinced they were prints at all; he couldn't imagine anything with feet like that taking fifty-foot strides, or making prints that clear but only every couple minutes. Still, Marston kept _finding_ them, and found something at the end of them.

They'd gone round to the other side of the island, where the land rose into a little bluff and then dropped off toward the far beach. John wandered down toward the foot of the bluff, still scowling at the ground like he was actually tracking something, and there on the island shore they found the ugliest goddamn creature Arthur had ever seen, present company included.

From a certain angle it might have passed for a sheep. A dirty, dusty sheep with overgrown wool, with thick legs bare of wool or fur or anything, ending in flat feet that did, yes, look like an elephant's feet. Its head was as big as a bison's, but with a heavy, underslung jaw and fat jowls. Its ears were longer than a mule's, and fleabitten, and hung limp beside the unfortunate creature's face.

And apparently, it heard them.

It turned to look at them, rheumy white eyes appearing blind but for how clearly its attention was fixed on them.

"...let's not hunt that," John said.

Privately, Arthur agreed. "Might be kinder to put it out of its misery," he said. Looking at it head-on, the thing didn't look healthy. There were a few large black spots disfiguring its face, and its wool was tangled and studded with twigs and leaf debris, and its huge nostrils twitched.

Then the thing sneezed so fiercely that it went flying twelve feet back into the water.

And sent Arthur and John flying back into the face of the bluff, hard as though they'd been slapped by a cyclone wind.

Knocked the sense out of Arthur. For a minute he was seeing stars and colors, and then he heard John spluttering in indignation or disgust, and then he shook his head and tried to get to his feet, and he realized that he couldn't move.

He blinked the last of the colored spots from his vision. There was some... horrid, thick yellowy-green _stuff_ gluing him to the rock and soil behind him. Looked like it had got John, too, pinning them both like insects. John was coughing and spitting like his life depended on it.

The diseased sheep-thing was wallowing out of the water, shaking itself off. Even after a dunking, its wool didn't look much cleaner. It bleated out what sounded like a rude remark, and loped off along the shore.

"What the hell!" John yelled.

Arthur struggled for a moment against the gunk, which didn't yield to his efforts. "God _damn_ it, Marston," he growled. "You know, forget what Hosea says, I'm never taking you hunting again."

"Oh, this is _my_ fault?" John demanded. "You're the one who wanted to come out to the middle of the lake hunting for imaginary animals." He threw himself against the slime, which didn't let him up any more than it had loosened for Arthur's efforts.

"You know the nice thing about imaginary animals?" Arthur asked. "Generally, one doesn't have to worry about getting attacked by them!" John was still struggling. Arthur let out an irritated breath. "Will you stop twitching? Bear's going to come along, think you're a landed fish, and eat you."

John stopped writhing, but Arthur got the feeling it was more so he could give him a scornful look and less because he took the warning seriously. "You think there are bears on an island this size?"

"I didn't think there was goddamn monster sheep either," Arthur said. "But you found one."

There was a lot of goop on them. More than ought to have come out of an animal that size. He couldn't move much, but he could wiggle his fingers a little, and he could scrape at the bluff behind him. A lot of it was stone but some of it was dirt, and if he could dig the dirt away, maybe he could work his hand over to the knife at his hip.

John threw himself forward again, then subsided when it clearly did nothing. "All I wanted," he said. "All I wanted was to have a quiet goddamn day. Forget about the Grays and the Braithwaites and this Confederate gold for _one damn day._ Just... enjoy life." He twitched, as though to say _and now look._

"Oh, you wanted to enjoy life, did you," Arthur said, not even bothering to keep the scorn from dripping off his tone. "Because your life ordinarily is such a trial."

"With you around, every waking moment is a trial," John snarled back.

"Yeah, you just cry back to Hosea about that," Arthur said. "No, better yet — you go talk to Abigail. See how much sympathy you can rustle up." The bluff behind his hand was more rock than dirt. Still, he kept scraping.

"How did this become about Abigail?" John asked, emphasis on every word, like slipping bullets into a revolver.

In John's mind, probably nothing was ever supposed to be about Abigail. Not even Jack or Abigail. "Because," Arthur growled, "that's the entire goddamn reason we're out here, Marston!"

"No, the reason we're out here is because you and Hosea can't leave well enough alone," John snapped. "You care so much about Abigail's concerns, maybe one of _you_ ought to take up with her!"

"Oh, that's _it,_ " Arthur snapped, and would have thrown himself at John and torn his head off if he could move. As it was, he got in a hell of a fight with the blanket of slime, which the slime won.

Over three feet to the left, John lost his own battle, and for a while both of them just slumped there, panting, with the hot sun shining down on them. Neither one of them spoke. Lasted long enough for a couple of birds to light in the trees on top of the bluff and chirp down at them.

At length, John said, "So how do we get out of this?"

Arthur muttered an insult under his breath.

"I ain't starving to death on some island because a goddamn sheep sneezed on me," John said.

"Well, then you tell me," Arthur shot back.

Silence again. One of the birds hopped down to the lip of the bluff and stared at them.

"...you think any of them would hear us if we called for help?" John asked.

Arthur squinted up at the sky. They were on the far side of the island from the camp, but sound might carry over the flat expanse of the lake. Never mind that they'd taken the camp's boat, and he wasn't sure he wanted anyone to come find them like this.

John, apparently taking his silence for sullenness, said, "Well, you and Javier heard me. Up on that mountain."

"Yeah, you've got a set of lungs for hollering," Arthur said, but the fight had bled out of John's tone, and Arthur wasn't angry enough to carry it on himself.

John was silent for a sullen second longer, and then he said, "I ever... thank you for that?"

_That_ wasn't what Arthur had been expecting.

He glanced over at John, who was staring at a rock a few feet in front of his feet. "Few times. Yeah. You did."

"Can't really remember," John said. "Swanson got me with his morphine."

And there Arthur had thought the morphine was the better part of why John had been thanking him. "Yeah, well," he said. "Would have done it for anybody." He considered that, a moment. "Maybe not Micah."

John snorted. "Yes, you would've. Dutch asked you, you would've. You broke him out of that jail cell, didn't you?"

"I still think that was a mistake," Arthur grumbled.

A rock caught under his fingernail, and he jerked his hand away as far as it would go and hissed. Wasn't looking likely that he could dig his way to freedom.

After a moment, which John had apparently spent thinking, John said, "Point is, I know what you do for the gang. Everyone does." He sounded resigned, and also like this might be a peace offering. "But it ain't as easy for the rest of us."

Maybe it wasn't a peace offering. Maybe it wasn't an excuse. " _What_ ain't as easy?"

"Being a part of things," John said.

Arthur turned that over for a second, and said, "What."

"I thought I had it figured out," John said. "When there weren't that many of us. And Dutch... I mean, I knew you all saved me, when you found me. I wasn't going to say no one else needed saving. Bringing in more and more people; that was all fine. Even the women." He twitched again. Might have been a shrug. "Just... everything changed. And it changed a lot, with Jack. And no one expected _you_ to change with it."

Of course not. The boy hadn't been his.

Arthur winced, and turned to stare off the other way, along the shoreline. A few birds had gathered to pick at something — a dead fish, or something, washed up along the shore.

Maybe he didn't have much room to talk, when it came to wisdom and fatherhood. But he at least understood what a rare thing, how strange and fleeting and above all _fragile_ it was to be standing in that place, with some new life looking back at you.

"Just _try,_ " Arthur said. His voice was rougher than he meant it to be. "All anyone wants is you to try. Half the time, you won't even do that."

John made a dark noise. "I think Abigail wants more than that."

"Well, maybe you can't do all Abigail wants you to," Arthur said. "It ain't an excuse to do nothing."

John said nothing.

Arthur swallowed. Still felt like there was gravel in his throat. "What're you afraid of?" he asked. "You'll look like a fool? You do that every day." John scoffed. "You'll get the kid killed? There's too many of us watching out for him for that. Anything else..." He trailed off, searched for words. "Ain't as easy," he repeated. What a piss-poor excuse for anything. "Maybe it ain't. Someone say it was supposed to be?"

John had stopped arguing, and wasn't looking his way. That probably meant the argument was as close to won as it would get, which was good, because Arthur felt like he'd really run out of words before he'd started talking. They stood there against the bluff, listening to the birds going about their business, until John cleared his throat and said, "Not that it makes much difference if we're going to die here, stuck to some cliff."

Arthur snorted. "Stop being so dramatic," he said. Not that he had any idea how they were going to avoid dying stuck to some cliff; wouldn't be the stupidest way he'd heard of someone dying. Wouldn't even be the stupidest way he'd _seen_ someone die.

John sighed, like maybe he'd reconsidered how bad that would be. Then he craned his neck, and said, "...well, maybe not."

Arthur glanced his way.

John had twisted his head around to stare down at an awkward angle; he looked like a turkey aiming to get its neck wrung. "I think this stuff is drying out," he said.

"Huh," Arthur said. It was true; it looked like the stuff was getting brittle around the edges.

He shoved forward, and the stuff around his chin and neck started cracking. Some of the bits stuck to the bluff cracked, too; it wasn't much, but it was more give than he'd had before.

With enough fight and force he managed to get his hand over to his knife, and got the knife out of its sheath with no more than a few knicks against his thumb and his leg. By the time he'd awkwardly sawed himself free John had only managed to get his shoulder and arm loose to the elbow; Arthur kicked away the last stringy scraps and walked over to cut John loose.

"Thanks," John said. He looked a little worse for wear; then again, both of them probably looked like something the dog hacked up. Their little adventure hadn't done much for how they smelled, either. John was scowling fit to sprain something. "Can we go back to camp now? I think Hosea made his point, whatever it was."

Arthur turned to squint toward the far shore of the lake. The sun was getting lower, but it wasn't quite setting yet. He could just pick out some of the buildings of Blackwater against the glare.

"Not yet," he said.

John groaned. "Arthur..."

"First," Arthur announced, "I'm going to find that sheep. Then I'm going to shoot it. Then I'm going to have Pearson cook it up for Hosea's dinner."

John stared at him. If he'd been slightly more resolved, he probably would have taken the boat and rowed back to camp himself.

Then he dropped his head, and let out a rueful chuckle. "Right," he said. "Just watch out for flying snot."

* * *

The island wasn't that big; there was nowhere for the sheep-thing to hide.

Arthur caught up to the creature a quarter of the way around the shore. Not that he'd been so much a fool as to track it along the shore; no, he'd gone back up into the wooded patch in the island's center, planning on ducking behind a tree if the thing so much as looked his way. Sneaking through the underbrush, he managed to come up mostly behind and beside it. Suited him. If the thing wasn't facing him, it couldn't sneeze on him, and he could still just about get an angle on its heart, this way.

Or at least, that was what he thought until he took aim, squeezed the trigger, and the bullet ricocheted off the thing's wool with the scratchy _ping!_ of a cheap bell, and a shower of sparks.

The sheep jumped up like a marionette jerked on a string, head coming up to scan the woods. Arthur managed to mutter " _Shit_ " before the thing actually charged, and no, he hadn't been expecting that; but there it was, galumphing toward him, its rheumy white eyes narrowed in offense.

From elsewhere in the trees, John took a potshot that knocked one of its feet out from under it. Hardly seemed to slow it down; it went head-over-heels, came back up again, turned on a dime, and threw a donkey-kick at Arthur that would have taken his head off if he hadn't thrown himself to the side. John got another shot in, which squealed against its head-wool and caught its attention; it sneezed out another net which took out a berry bush and narrowly missed Marston on his left side.

Its wool seemed to be as good as armor. Arthur grabbed a rock and threw it to catch the thing's attention; it hit one of the long, floppy ears, and the beast turned, stung.

Right into a blast from Arthur's sawed-off.

Somehow, it got out one last profanity-toned bleat before it collapsed.

Arthur kept his shotgun pointed at the carcass while he approached, and prodded the thing with one booted toe. The wool was sharp and stiff, like fine wires; left scratches on the leather when he drew his foot back. He glanced over to the trees, where John was extracting himself; looked like the sneeze had caught him, just about: grazed his left hand, and he was slicing his way away from the sodden green bush.

"You alright?" Arthur asked.

"I'm going to be washing this stuff off in my nightmares," John grumbled. "Are we done?"

Arthur poked the dead not-sheep with his foot again. "I think so."

"Great." John wiped his hand on his trouser leg. "I'll meet you at the boat."

He stalked off through the trees, leaving Arthur to figure out how to carry the monster back without scratching up his arms or tearing up his shirt. Arthur sighed, and stared down at the thing with distaste.

"I hate the South," he said.

* * *

By the looks in the camp, no one had actually expected John and Arthur to come back with game. By the aghast _second_ looks in the camp, everyone would have preferred that they hadn't.

Hosea intercepted them as they stopped by Pearson's wagon, and while he likely had planned to ask if they was feeling more settled now, apparently it was no longer the most important thing. " _What_ did you manage to find out there?", he demanded, in the tone Arthur had first heard as a boy, when he'd pilfered a few bottles from a doctor's office and come home to find that one was labeled _NITRO-GLYCERINE._

"This one," Arthur said, packing just about every scrap of cheer he could find into his voice, "is for you!"

He dropped the carcass down on Person's counter. Its wool screeched against an empty tin milkpail.

Hosea stared at the thing.

Pearson appeared from the other side of the wagon, with a bucket of grain already measured out to throw into the pot. He stopped short when he saw the meat, and took a step back. "Don't... think I've ever seen one of those before," he said.

"You've never seen a sheep?" John asked.

"Oh, no, no, no," Pearson said. "That is _not_ a sheep."

"Hosea," Arthur said. "You wanted me to take Marston hunting. I took him hunting. Least you can do is act happy."

Hosea sidled up to the carcass and gave it an uneasy prod, and then pulled his finger back with a grimace. Looked like he'd pricked himself on a sharp bit of wool. "I would be happier if I knew what the hell you boys managed to get yourself into."

John snorted. "No, you wouldn't."

"Pearson!" Arthur turned to him, hoping to get the last word in. Rare enough, with Hosea. "If you can find any, ah, choice cuts on that, you make sure Hosea gets them." He looked at Hosea. "He deserves them."

He reached over, clapped John on the shoulder, and headed off anywhere else. John actually tipped his hat to Hosea before retreating, which was a nice touch.

And with that they scattered, leaving Hosea to admonish Pearson with an, "If any part of that makes it into my bowl tonight...."

All in all, Arthur reflected, it could have gone worse.

Not that he was in a hurry to repeat the day's adventures. No; he settled down on the ground by the scout fire, where no one seemed likely to bother him.

Lemoyne's muggy air made the fire something harsh and unwelcome. But the fire was a part of the camp, just the same as every one of them; this place wouldn't quite be _home_ if they all didn't have to put up with Uncle's snoring or Swanson's drunken caterwauling or the accumulated smell of horseshit or the heat of the fire. Or each other's short tempers and frayed nerves. The grousing, the griping, the sniping, and eventually — usually — the forgiveness that came on with the next job, or the next night's sleep.

Usually.

Anyway, the sun was on its way down. Wasn't enough to cool the world off, mind; even the nights down here were still warm, though they weren't so boiling hot.

A few folks, already anticipating the fading of the light, were gathering over by the big fire. Over by Pearson's wagon, Arthur saw a few bright sprays of sparks; heard a string of curses as Pearson tried to get the island sheep skinned. By that time he'd gone ahead and made stew for the camp, with no effort to add whatever kind of mutton he could get off the thing; Arthur got up and wandered over to get his bowl, and was greeted with a glower and a "Never again, Mr. Morgan."

Arthur shrugged. "Tell Hosea."

Over on Hosea's bedroll, it seemed Jack had proven the most sensible of all of them; after the scrubbing Abigail had given him, he seemed to have napped through the hottest part of the day. Now he was up, picking up some precious stick of his he'd tied a few scraps of ribbon onto, wandering off to find a log to sit on until his mama got around to bringing him something to eat.

Over by the fire, John noticed him and, as was his habit, shifted on his seat and looked away.

Arthur frowned.

He went to meander past the log Jack had sat on. Said, "Hey, Jack," loud enough to be heard. Was answered by a quiet, "Oh, hey," tired and resigned as anything; well, no wonder, if he'd got scolded for that skunk earlier in the day. Personally, Arthur was just glad for Abigail's sake that Hosea was getting to Jack early; he didn't know how she'd manage if she had to deal with a little hellion at eleven, like how they'd found Marston. Or — be fair — fourteen, like how Dutch and Hosea had found _him_.

He wandered over to the fire. Stood there eating his stew, not quite close enough to be a part of things; just close enough to be a bother. Fixed his stare on Marston.

John twitched, and turned to stare at the fire like he hadn't seen Arthur. Arthur kept up the stare. After a minute or so John glanced back at him, glanced away, turned his back, lasted all of thirty seconds, and then hunched his shoulders and got up with ill grace. Kept himself from looking Arthur's way, as he made his way across the camp to where Jack was sitting, scratching in the dirt with a stick. "Hey, Jack."

Jack looked up at him, not looking quite sure about this. Probably had gotten a talking-to along with his scrubbing about not wandering out of sight of folks, and how John didn't quite count as _folks_ in this little accounting. "Yeah?"

John twitched, and seemed to almost look back Arthur's way. "You, uh... want... to play... some dominos?" he asked.

Jack shrugged. "I don't know how to play dominos," he said.

"Well..." Apparently, John didn't have another idea. He looked like he looked when one of his plans fell apart, and he was too godawful stubborn to admit it and make a new one.

Still. Now and again, there were worse qualities to have.

"Come on," he said. "I'll teach you. It'll be fun."


End file.
